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January 30, 2014

“Many of us have inherited a version of the ‘good news’ that, honestly, doesn’t seem very good. We wrestle with the disparity between the god we are told exists, and the God our hearts tell us must exist. Unfortunately, few of us have a conversation partner with which we can process this incongruity. Enter Joshua Tongol. This is more than a book; it’s an invitation. An invitation to allow yourself to ask the hard questions of the faith you have inherited. So, grab a beverage, pull up a chair, and allow Josh to give voice to the questions your heart has been asking. I think you might just find something that you can finally call ‘good news’.” (Raborn Johnson, "Beyond the Box")

“In this artful, thoughtful and accessible work, Joshua Tongol asks some very disconcerting questions and offers equally liberating proposals. His challenges should not be misread as simply setting up polarizing binaries. Rather, I believe he’s faithfully shaping a generation of critically thinking believers with the capacity to perform a very specific and unlikely miracle: making Christianity possible for my grandchildren. What matters to God and what matters to me is a theology and practice that magnifies the love of God and ministers the love of Christ. The rest, apparently, really is up for grabs.” (Brad Jersak, "Clarion Journal")

Thus we come to the final stage in our thinking about hermeneutics from the juxtaposition of insights gained from Paul Ricoeur and René Girard. It may have been noticed that the discipline of hermeneutics as I am telling the story cannot be divorced from the person and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. While many would claim to have a Jesus centered hermeneutic what is meant by that is questionable. For many in first naiveté and critical distance a Jesus centered hermeneutic means a “personal relationship” with Jesus. However, they still bring to their readings of Scripture (and life) every kind of unexamined grid imaginable. Jesus does not redefine terms such as human, revelation, God, history, spirituality but is subsumed under old definitions that I have argued no longer work.

Preston, Andrew. Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American war and diplomacy. New York. Toronto: Alfred Knopf, 2012.

Andrew Preston has written an informative book on an unusual topic: religion and politics. It is long and detailed; 600 plus pages along with 200 more pages of bibliography, notes and index. Preston is committed to outlining the entwinement of religious belief and the foreign politics of the developing American Republic…despite the official doctrine of the separation of Church and state. Both religion and foreign policy have served to shape America, and yet few religious historians examine diplomacy whole just as few American diplomatic historians examine the influence of religion. This motivates Preston to examine the entwinement closely. Religion, notes Preston, is not the only influencing pattern, there are many others, but religion is critically important in foreign policy; and, “politics is central because it formed a bridge between popular religion and elite policy” (p.7). Preston asks, “Why should American policy makers care about religion?” Rhetorically he answers that the policy makers themselves grew up in religiously based environments and bring these learned attitudes to the public office. Thus he states, “…much of my task is therefore dedicated to recovering the lost dimensions and exposing the hidden depths of the individuals who made US Policy” (p.8).

January 24, 2014

First is that cross is central to this hermeneutic, it is not simply an add-on or a meaningless event. The Passion Narrative is “the ancient way trodden by the wicked” (Job 22:15), the path of the scapegoat that leads to a death ritual. Jesus saw a framework in the Bible, a framework of death that his contemporaries could not see. This is in his saying “Therefore, upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been poured out on the earth, from the blood of that righteous man Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the temple and the altar” (Mat 23:1 CEB). For Jesus, the Bible is bookended with murder most foul!

Jesus also understood that this was the inevitable path he would have to take, following the crowds attempts to make him king (John 6:15). Following this ‘botched’ miracle, Jesus retreats to Caesarea Philippi and queries them about their understanding of him. It is at this point when they have misunderstood him as a Warrior Messiah that he begins to teach them about the Suffering True Human. The cross is not just the end of Jesus story but can be found in his awareness of what a position he had been put in by the crowds and his disciples own misunderstanding of him and his mission.

Claims are often made about the text of the bible that the text never makes about itself. These claims are usually dressed up with the titles infallible, inerrant, or inspired. All too often, the attempt at dealing with these topics is something of a minefield, filled with areas of dangerous terrain. We need not fear taking an objective look at what has become the object of our faith in so many arenas. Doubt and uncertainty are friends of faith, not foes. In doubting we find ourselves driven to study, driven to find answers, and driven to question those answers. In uncertainty we find ourselves driven to search out what is certain, and to reevaluate our faith and dogma. However, when the idol of certainty begins to creep in again we are coming dangerously close to a prison of faux faith, a cage of infallibility. As we look into these topics, we must learn to keep an open mind, and to realize that much of what we hold fast is not ancient faith, as though Jesus himself had dictated it, but rather recent inventions of the minds of humans, usually trying to make sense of a group of documents that at times seem to have issues of disconnection and various historical, clerical, and translational errors.

As we progress through this essay, we will discuss what I am going to call the classic views of inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility, showing where the beliefs come from, and then offering an alternative view to the previously accepted belief. I am not declaring myself to be a decision maker on matters of the faith, I’m rather simply offering an alternate understanding to something that ought to be open to the halls of discussion rather than locked away for none to investigate. I am also not trying to advocate the dismissal of the text, or a mass Bible burning across the globe. I hold the scripture at an extremely high value in my life and the life of the believer. I firmly believe that there are answers to all of life’s problems found in the pages of the book, but that doesn’t mean that every word is an answer!

“Who sacrifices what to whom?”

Three phrases from the Divine Liturgy clarify the question of who is sacrificing to whom in the Eucharist:

1. Deacon to Priest: “It is time to begin the service to the Lord” (OCA version) or better “It is time for the Lord to act.” (Ware’s translation from the Greek liturgy) a quote from Ps. 118 (119):126.

The divine liturgy is not primarily our action but Christ’s. The true celebrant is the unique high priest, Jesus Christ, invisible but in complete actuality and immediacy. Christ is the true celebrant. The clergy say, “Christ is in our midst."

2. In the cherubic hymn: the Celebrant addresses Christ: “Thou art the One who offers and is offered, who receives and is distributed.”

History: the first phrase of this sentence comes from a sermon of Theopholis the Patriarch in 400 AD and first appears in the liturgy in 800 AD. It is always a private prayer of the Celebrant.

Christ is envisaged as the true priest. The offerer and offering.

Who offers what? Christ offers himself.

3. The celebrant says: “Offering thee thine own from thine own in all things and for all things.”

This line is even more ancient. Goes back at least to Irenaeus in 2nd century. “We offer unto him what is his own.” And echoes 1 Chron. 29:14: “But who am I, and what is my people, that we have been able to be thus forward in offering to thee? For all things are thine, and of thine own have we given thee…”

This phrase of the liturgy is hard to translate. The correct reading is ‘Offering,’ not ‘we offer.’ In its participle form, it shows that the words lead directly to our response, ‘We sing thee, we praise thee,’ as a single unity.

The second phrase says that the sacrifice is not just for all persons but for all things. It is a cosmic offering for all creation, stressing our responsibility for the environment.

In light of these three key phrases: who offers what to whom?

First, WE (priest and people together) OFFER (Offering thee).

In it’s external sense, the Eucharist is our offering.

What do we offer?

1. We offer bread and wine, expressing our own human creativity. Not just sheaves of wheat and bunches of grapes, but bread and wine. The gifts of the earth, refashioned by human hands. Consciously offering back what the Creator gave us, with thanksgiving. We act as priests of creation that give creation a voice, rendering it articulate in praise of God, offering creation back to God.

2. We offer the total creation. In all things and for all things. The bread and wine signify the whole created order offered back to God in the liturgy. This is the New Covenant equivalent of the firstfruits, calling down the blessing and offering God the total harvest (cf. St. Irenaeus).

3. We offer ourselves. Not only what we have, but also what we are. We are part of the Eucharistic offering. Already in Ps. 40, cited in Heb. 10, we read – “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘See God, I have come to do your will.’”

We offer ourselves, soul and body, as a living sacrifice to him.

St. Augustine said: “In the very thing the church offers, she herself is offered. It is the mystery of yourselves that is laid on the Lord’s table; it is the mystery of yourselves that you receive. There you are on the table. There you are in the chalice.” When the crumbs representing the living and departed are put in the chalice, the celebrant says, “Wash away the sins of those here remembered with thy most precious blood.” There you are in the chalice.

Second, we also need to say: CHRIST OFFERS.

Christ offers himself. Our offering only has value because it is taken up into his, as seen in the three liturgical phrases above. The Eucharist is his offering, rather than ours. He is both priest and victim. St. Augustine: He is the priest, himself the one that offers, himself also the offering.

Every celebration of the Eucharist is the last supper. You and I are present, as the disciples were, at the last supper. “Believe therefore even now that it is the same supper at which he sat down ... When you see the priest giving the sacrifice, do not think it is the priest doing this, but that it is Christ’s hand stretched out.” (St. Chrysostom).

To whom is the offering made?

In the Divine Liturgy, Christ offers himselfto the Father. John 17:13 – “Now I come to thee.”

“Thou art the one who offers and is offered; thou art the one who receives.” He offers himself to himself.

But God the Trinity is indivisible. So the Eucharist is also made to the Holy Trinity. At the Council of Constantinople (1157 AD), the Church emphasized that the Godhead is indivisible so Christ could not offer sacrifice to Father without offering to himself and to the Holy Spirit. “Receive, Holy Trinity,” it says in the Roman Mass.

And the Eucharistic offering is made to us: Christ offers himself to us in Holy Communion, as implied in the prayer, “Thou art he who … receives and is distributed.”

What is the relationship between the Eucharist and the Cross?

Basic answer: Again, in Constantinople in 1157, which confronted the errors of Soterichus Pantengenus (Patriarch-elect of Antioch, ultimately not enthroned). He quoted the New Testament phrase, “Christ died once for all” (Rom 6:10, Heb. 7:27), and said, “Therefore, since Christ died once for all, therefore the Eucharist is not a real sacrifice but a memorial of the Cross, in an imaginary or iconic fashion.” This view was condemned and anathematized by the council.

The council said that the Eucharistic anamnesis [remembrance], not in a weak sense, but a strong sense. They claimed it was not a memorial or mere imaginary representation. On the contrary, it is the making present of the past, a re-presentation, making present once more. This is what anamnesis meant to them. Remembrance becomes reality—making effective in the present an event in the past. The once-for-all event for salvation becomes effective in the present through the Holy Spirit.

This understanding of anamnesisexcludes:

That it is a bare mental recollection of the sacrifice of the Cross.

That it is a repetition of the sacrifice of the Cross, for the sacrifice of the Cross is unique and unrepeatable.

That it is a new sacrifice, for the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross was complete.

Then what is it?

The council simply said, the Eucharistic sacrifice is identical with the sacrifice on the Cross—not bare recollection, repetition or addition. But rather, identical, unchanged, one and the same.

How?

Suggested by the theologian behind the council, Nicolas Methoni, who in turn drew from John Chrysostom’s Homilies on the Hebrews. The concept revolves around the concept of the heavenly altar in the book of Hebrews:

7:27 Christ offered sacrifice once for all.

4:14 After his self-offering, Christ the High Priest has passed into the heavens.

9:24 There in heaven he is continually made manifest in God’s presence on our behalf.

7:25 There he ever lives to make intercession for us.

Thus, Nicolas puts these texts together and offers the following theory of the Eucharistic sacrifice: “Christ’s unique and unrepeatable act of self-offering on the Cross is continued, not repeated, by his heavenly intercession.” We brings together three factors:

1. Christ’s self-offering on the Cross

2. Christ’s self-offering at the earthly altar in the liturgy.

And the connection between those two things is established by a third factor:

3. Christ’s self-offering at the heavenly altar.

We are not to try to relate the earthly liturgy as an event in time directly with the Cross as an event in time, because in historical time, these two events are separated. We can’t just make a straight line, horizontal connection.

Christ’s self-offering at the Cross is continued at the heavenly altar in eternity, and then we should see the earthly altar (divine liturgy) is a manifestation in time of the heavenly ministry of Christ.

Exactly what is made present in the divine liturgy is the heavenly liturgy: heaven on earth. The Church is an earthly heaven. Nicolas: “The mystery of the sacred rite celebrated daily is a showing forth of that eternal offering in heaven, which is the extension in eternity of Christ’s once for all self-offering on the Cross.”

Conclusion: The liturgical testimony of St. John Kronstad: “The Eucharist is a continual miracle. In the words, take eat and drink, there is expressed God’s overwhelming love for humankind. Oh perfect love, oh all-embracing love, oh irresistible love. What can we give in gratitude to God for such love?”

Editor's Note: Bethany Swallow is a high school teacher in Abbotsford, BC. She and her husband, Derek, recently returned from Tanzania, where she taught in an international school and he was working with CIDA in the area of development.

The following response was prepared for a live presentation at the University of the Fraser Valley.

As a young, female reader, I appreciated several key qualities that Trudy brilliantly and authentically demonstrates in her years-long exploration of God and his fullness. I would like to highlight the theme of ‘wholeness’ that weaved its way throughout Trudy’s book, ‘The Motherheart of God,’ and I will frame that idea with several points of gratitude concluding with comments from my own journey towards wholeness.

My gratitude for Trudy’s:

Honesty - Trudy postures herself to exploring this question with an eager and open heart. She demonstrates an honest inquiry, as she communicates her confusion, her doubt, and her earnest curiousity about her relatedness to God.

Integrity - Trudy exemplifies a woman of integrity. I noticed this throughout the book as she is careful to not depreciate or undermine the value of the many voices that she interviews. The many snapshot interviews are carefully narrated alongside Trudy’s personal anecdotes and life stories. These provide a framework for the reader’s understanding of her exploration, and the integrity of her spiritual travels.

January 19, 2014

This exerpt comes from Michael Hardin's Facebook "Primer on Hermeneutics (6)" Michael and Lorri Hardin are the founders/directors of Preaching Peace.

In a first naiveté we believe what we have been told by others. Our worldviews are formed by others. We mime the way they structure reality. In the maturation process it is possible that the mimetic following of the Model (the authoritarian pastor, the charismatic youth leader, etc) which are constituted by double binds (“Be like me but don’t be me”) create a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, enough that one begins to “question authority.” The leader is at the top of the mountain urging everyone else to get to the top of the mountain, but the fact is that in this pyramidal or hierarchical structure there is only room for one at the top. This can create intense emotional frustration which is what causes many to leave first naiveté.

The mimetic emotional crisis, whereby one disengages from a Model (whether real or imaginative), when one breaks away, is a ‘death process.’ When those who leave an institution which has been structured on sacred violence break away, they are potential “witnesses” to its underlying dysfunctional reality. Thus they must, according to the Institution (or pastor/priest) be shunned, avoided and are marginalized as those who have “gone after the devil”, “listened to the voice of satan”, etc. The first naiveté pastor/leader needs to control those underneath her/him.

January 15, 2014

Steve Stewart is Director of Impact Nations (www.impactnations.org), which serves around the world bring relief, development, justice and healing.

Central to God’s heart is community. From before the beginning of time, God dwelt in the triune community of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He created man for community with Him and with each other. The great tragedy of the Fall (Gen 3) is that perfect community was broken, but not lost forever. This is because from that moment to this, the movement of God has always been toward reconciliation¬––restoring what was broken. Through the Old Testament, the Lord called and initiated reconciliation with mankind. In Malachi He says, “Return to Me and I will return to you”. In the New Testament, Jesus seeks and invites us to return, to be restored––to be reconciled to Him.

Of course, the greatest act of reconciliation was the cross. Since my earliest days as a believer I have always been moved by the truth of Romans 8:5. Before I knew Jesus, before I even cared–– while I used His name to curse––even then, He loved me and died specifically for me. No wonder Paul wrote to the Romans:

“For is when were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Ro. 5:10 NKJ)

January 13, 2014

Stephen Leacock is known, by most Canadians, as an important literary humourist (with a gentle Swiftian bite) and political economist. Most do not realize that Leacock wrote some fine books on Canadian history and literary criticism. Many know T.S. Eliot as an incisive and demanding poet, literary critic and dramatist. Both Leacock and Eliot, though, were grounded in a classical High Tory Humanist Anglican way (this is often conveniently ignored by most). It was from such deeper historic places there was a meeting of minds. Both men had an affinity for the best that had been thought, said and done in the past and the ongoing relevance of such permanent things to the malaise and ethos of their times.

Leacock brought together a collection of timely essays on education, literature, politics, morality and history in 1916---the book, Essays and Literary Studies, sold well, and, true to form, went after the strange gods of the era. Essays and Literary Studies was neatly divided into nine inviting and charming chapters: 1) The Apology of a Professor, 2) The Devil and the Deep sea, 3) Literature and Education in America, 4) American Humour, 5) The Woman Question, 6) The Lot of the Schoolmaster, 7) Fiction and Reality, 8) The Amazing Genius of O. Henry and 9) A Rehabilitation of Charles II.

January 10, 2014

The church in which I serve as priest is currently going through a Bible study. This particular study is based around 100 biblical texts, and the overall intent is to give a panoramic overview of the Bible. People are engaged and learning a lot. So far, so good.

But the process of reading the Bible in a straightforward manner has also shown me the dangers of biblical literalism. I fear that in reading the Bible as the Word of God (a position I gladly affirm), we can fall into the trap of assuming that every single text shows us the character of God with equal clarity. But this is not so; the Bible is both more complex and more simple than that.

As a hermeneutical experiment, I want to walk through Exodus 32, paying particular attention to the violence in the text. I’m going to suggest that we read this text through a hermeneutic of suspicion, but a suspicion that arises from commitment to Jesus, rather than a general skepticism as such.

January 02, 2014

The Bible is the word of God that bears witness to the Word of God — Jesus Christ.

The Logos-Word became flesh — not a book.

Jesus is God. The Bible is not.

The Bible did not create the Heavens and Earth — the Word (Christ) did.

We worship Jesus; we do not worship the Bible.

The Bible is not a member of the Trinity.

The Bible is not God. Jesus is God.

The Bible is not perfect. (There are parts of it we now regard as obsolete; e.g.Levitical codes.)

Christ is the perfection of God as a human being.

What the Bible does infallibly is point us to Jesus Christ.

There is one mediator between God and man…and it’s not the Bible.

The Bible is the inspired witness to the true Word of God who is Jesus Christ.

Now consider this…

The first Sunday after Christmas the Gospel reading was John 1:1-18. As I heard the Gospel read it occurred to me that the role John the Baptist played as the divinely sent witness to the Light is precisely how we should view Scripture in relation to Christ. Allow me to reproduce the reading, but I will substitute John the Baptist with Holy Scripture.